Pathway Bookstore Closes

It’s official, the press release in its entirety:

For the last several years Pathway Bookstore has served the Cleveland and Bradley County community at its current location. Pathway Press has struggled with the economic issues that affect everyone at this time. Due to the uncertainty of the economy, and after much deliberation, the leadership of Pathway Press, its Board of Directors and leadership of Church of God have made the difficult decision to close Pathway Bookstore, effective immediately.

Current plans are to sell the existing bookstore property on 25th Street. Decisions regarding possible reopening of the bookstore at another location are under consideration, but as of this date no firm plans are in place. We will continue to be available to serve the community via the internet at www.pathwaybookstore.com. If you hold a gift card or have layaways, they will be honored through the internet or at Pathway Press, located at 1080 Montgomery Avenue, Cleveland, TN 37311 (423) 479-9601. Pathway Press has enjoyed the opportunity of serving the city of Cleveland and Bradley County, and appreciates the support of everyone in our area.

At one time this was the second largest Christian bookstore in the U.S.

7 Replies to “Pathway Bookstore Closes”

This is such sad news. The Church of God and other Pentecostals really does need this book store so that we can find material on the Holy Ghost as Lifeway book store will not carry any. Please try to possibly open a bookstore in a bigger city such as Birmingham,Al.

To start with, Pathway didn’t build that store. They bought an old grocery store (it was a Wal-Mart before that.)

Second, the basic problem with the store was that the overhead was excessive. This was predicted by internal projections but they were ignored. Pathway had had a successful retail operation in Cleveland long before that but the store’s size and expenses simply could not be supported by the sales volume.

Third, Lifeway is coming into Cleveland. They have many successful retail outlets. (BTW, what’s happened to the WaldenBooks that used to inhabit many shopping malls?) In fact, they’re scheduled to open not so far from the Panera Bread you were sitting at when you wrote this comment.